Posts Tagged ‘sun’

Psalm 96:5
For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens

Prior to the Copernican Revolution which did not begin until 200 years after the publication of his book; On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543, science and the world generally adhered to the Ptolemaic model of the universe, which had the earth at its center, with the sun revolving around it.

This view of the universe appealed to Christians and to science and for the most part, they were one in the same. The appeal came from Genesis; if God created the heavens and the earth and man was His principal creation in that universe, then it would make sense for the world to revolve around him metaphorically and for the rest of the universe to be centered around the earth in actuality.

Of course, the Bible itself never claimed the earth as the universe‚Äôs center or that the sun revolved around it, a fact that seems to be lost on modern day Atheistic book authors. It was in fact science that promoted the Ptolemaic model remembering that in those days most scientists played on ‚ÄúGod‚Äôs team‚ÄĚ-or thought they were.

Many point to the acceptance and realization that Copernicus was correct as the beginning of the scientific revolution. The Ptolemaic view of the universe had tended to keep the Atheists in check in the game of cosmic chess. This was because it appeared to tie Genesis to a specific view of the universe that seemed to in return support the Genesis account of creation.

Copernicus got them out of check. Before that, all the Atheists could do was move their pawns back and forth.

Intellectuals who wanted to disbelieve in God were seeking a rational method of understanding the universe and its creation that excluded God. The scientific revolution that began with the understanding that not only did the sun not revolve around the earth, but that we might be located at some insignificant address in the universe rather than on Main street created the climate that allowed Darwinism to be acceptable.

Darwin finally provided Atheists and Materialists with a ‚Äúrational‚ÄĚ model for believing in a self causing universe. Dawkins famously said that it allowed him to be intellectually fulfilled. After the acceptance of Darwin‚Äôs theory by science, the big bang theory gave Cosmologists a companion ‚Äúmaterial causes theory‚ÄĚ for the creation of the universe.

Unfortunately for Materialists, the promise of science has not materialized (pun intended). It turns out that the more we know, the less palatable are the big bang standard model and the more design in the universe and in living cells becomes apparent (intelligent design).

‚Äú‚Ä¶‚Ä¶driving the superstring craze (infinite parallel universes) is the desire to escape intelligent design. The fine-tuning of the laws of physics for our existence has been studied now for well over 60 years. There‚Äôs no escaping the anthropic principle.

If the laws and constants of physics were not what they are, we could not be here to study them. Theists have a ready answer for this. The God who spoke the universe and its laws into existence formed it to be inhabited. That cosmologists would escape into multiple universes to avoid the obvious is a measure of extreme desperation.

Where did this desperation come from? Think back to the late 19th century, when Darwinism was on the rise. Various social, political, economic and philosophical trends were moving away from natural theology and toward philosophical materialism. The Myth of Progress was the ‚Äúin‚ÄĚ thing. Materialists such as Tyndall and Huxley inculcated a third-order theory change: a change in what constitutes science itself. There were two sides to this theory change: an exclusion, and an inclusion. Moreland explains that Darwinism was an attempt to exclude theology from science. As a consequence, this led to the inclusion of storytelling. ‚Äú CreationEvolutionHeadlines.com

The Copernican Gambit

In this cosmic game of chess, which has been going on at least from the time of the scientific revolution, there have been moves and countermoves on the part of Theists and Materialists with respect to the origin of the universe.

We live in a universe fine tuned for life. This knowledge grudgingly comes from science, not from believers, even though it is what we would expect. Science is stuck on its side of the chessboard throwing out weird defenses like dark matter and dark energy which is needed to make big bang work. This dark matter and energy which accounts for 95% of matter and energy can‚Äôt be seen, tested or measured. This kind of thing, along with superstring theory, which also can‚Äôt be falsified or tested, is making it difficult for the well read Materialist to be intellectually fulfilled.

But now, scientists ‚ÄúBlake Temple and Joel Smoller, mathematicians at the University of California and the University of Michigan, believe they have come up with a whole new set of calculations that allow for all the sums to add up without the need for this controversial substance.‚ÄĚ ..Telegraph.co.uk

At the last moment, a new strategy; the Copernican Gambit; a possible way to fix the big bang theory and to free materialists from the pressure of defending a theory that only accounts for 4% to 5% of observations. Can materialistic creation be saved?

‚ÄėThe new research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, is likely to be equally controversial as the work it purports to challenge especially as it relies on our galaxy being at the centre of the Universe‚ÄĚ‚Ä¶. Telegraph.co.uk

The Copernican principle is the presumption that there is nothing special about our place in space and time; neither us humans nor our planet.

“Just when we thought we were out, (of the center) they pulled us back in”!

Dark energy – the mysterious substance thought to make up three-quarters of the universe – may not actually exist, claims new research.

The concept of dark energy was created by cosmologists to fit Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity into reality after modern space telescopes discovered that the Universe was not behaving as it should.

According to Einstein’s work, the speed at which the Universe is expanding following the Big Bang should be slower than it actually is and this unexplained anomaly threatened to turn the whole theory upside down. In order to reconcile this problem the concept of dark energy was invented.

Are we being overloaded? But now Blake Temple and Joel Smoller, mathematicians at the University of California and the University of Michigan, believe they have come up with a whole new set of calculations that allow for all the sums to add up without the need for this controversial substance.

The research could change the way astronomers view the composition of our Universe.

The Standard Model of Cosmology, which describes the evolution of the Universe, begins with the Big Bang. Astronomers have recently observed that the galaxies are accelerating as they move away from each other, and cosmologists have sought to explain this unexpected acceleration by introducing the concept of dark energy, which permeates space, propels matter, and accounts for nearly 75 percent of the mass-energy in our Universe.

The new research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, is likely to be equally controversial as the work it purports to challenge especially as it relies on our galaxy being at the centre of the Universe – a concept that has been generally disregarded in modern science.

Dr Malcom Fairbairn, particle cosmologist at King’s College London, said: “Ever since the concept of dark energy was first mentioned people have been trying to explain it or explain it away. It is a mystery and an inconvenience.

Like giant, cosmic chutes between the Earth and sun, magnetic portals open up every eight minutes or so to connect our planet with its host star.

Once the portals open, loads of high-energy particles can travel the 93 million miles (150 million km) through the conduit during its brief opening, space scientists say.

Called a flux transfer event, or FTE, such cosmic connections not only exist but are possibly twice as common as anyone ever imagined, according to space scientists who attended the 2008 Plasma Workshop in Huntsville, Ala., last week.

“Ten years ago I was pretty sure they didn’t exist, but now the evidence is incontrovertible,” said David Sibeck, an astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Dynamic bursts

Researchers have long known that the Earth and sun must be connected. For instance, particles from the sun are constantly whisked away via the solar wind and often follow magnetic field lines that connect the sun’s atmosphere with terra firma. The field lines allow particles to penetrate Earth’s magnetosphere, the magnetic bubble that surrounds our planet.

“We used to think the connection was permanent and that solar wind could trickle into the near-Earth environment anytime the wind was active,” Sibeck said. “We were wrong. The connections are not steady at all. They are often brief, bursty and very dynamic.”

Several speakers at the workshop outlined the formation of a flux transfer event. One idea is that on the side of Earth facing the sun, our magnetic field presses against the sun’s magnetic field. And about every eight minutes, the two fields briefly reconnect, forming a portal through which particles can flow. The portal takes the form of a magnetic cylinder about as wide as Earth.

Sibeck said to think of the FTE as a giant rolling pin that lies flat along the boundary between the Earth’s and sun’s magnetic fields. (He noted the rolling pin would have to be malleable so it could pierce through both magnetic fields while lying flat.)

“These FTEs kind of look like roller pins, and they form as little blob roller pins at the tip of the magnetosphere facing the sun,” Sibeck told SPACE.com. “They can’t decide which way they’re going to slide around the Earth, so they grow there into big roller pins and then they take off and sort of spirally roll along [Earth's magnetosphere] like you’re pounding out dough.”

More than one FTE can form at once, he said, and they stay open for about 15 to 20 minutes.

More to learn

In order to measure such FTEs, spacecraft must not only catch them forming but also be on either end of the magnetic structures (either lengthwise or widthwise). In fact, the European Space Agency’s fleet of four Cluster spacecraft and NASA’s five THEMIS probes have flown through and surrounded these cylinders, measuring their dimensions and sensing the particles that shoot through, Sibeck said. While these measurements have nailed down the width of an FTE, the length is still uncertain though one measurement put it at up to five Earth radii. One Earth radius is about 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers).

Astrophysicist Jimmy Raeder of the University of New Hampshire used those measurements to develop computer simulations of the portals. He found the cylindrical portals tend to form above Earth’s equator and then in December, the FTEs would roll over the North Pole. In July, they roll over the South Pole.

Sibeck thinks the events occur twice as often as previously thought, proposing two types of flux transfer events ‚ÄĒ active and passive.

When the magnetic cylinders are active, they allow particles to flow through rather easily, forming important conduits of energy for Earth’s magnetosphere, Sibeck said. When passive, the cylinders have more resistance to transiting particles. The internal structure of a passive cylinder makes it tougher for particles and magnetic fields to flow through. Sibeck has calculated the properties of passive FTEs and hopes he and his colleagues will hunt for signs of them in data collected with THEMIS and Cluster.

The space scientists at the workshop still want to figure out why the portals form every eight minutes and how magnetic fields inside the cylinders twist and coil.